People always thought the end would come from war or disease, maybe some global economic collapse. Who would have thought the end would be caused by something from a video game.

I awoke with a start, my head pounding and a shrill noise blaring in my head that seemed to permeate every bit of my being echoing throughout my body. The noise appeared to have no direct source that I could discern.

This is not what I had expected when I went camping in the Northwoods, well more like glamping since there were bathrooms and electricity but hey it was nice just to get away from the city, and my job if only temporarily. I only came up here for a quick weekend retreat to avoid people as it was earlier in the season than most people came camping and the campgrounds were empty of any other campers.

I rolled over in my tent and vomited the remains of my supper on the floor as I clutched my throbbing head trying to will the world to stop spinning. It felt like I had gone on an all-day bender and this was the world's worst hangover. To top it off a blue interface screen floated in front of my face with a timer counting down on it. Counting down to what I wasn't sure.

Now I was an avid gamer in my younger days and I worked in I.T. so I intuitively understood that this was some sort of an interface window and whatever was causing my head to feel like an overinflated balloon was likely linked together.

The window reminded me of a message popup in the games I used to love so much, the venerable RPG's. It was a generic square box that was partially transparent with a thin line around its edge a slightly different shade of blue. Honestly, it was very clean, graphics artists would love it. I took a breath to try and calm my rapidly beating heart and tried willing the countdown to the corner of my vision.

57:36 remaining on the clock

The window complied.

"Well, at least it's not voice-activated," I mumbled. "Sure would be nice if my hallucination came with a help section?"

As soon as the words left my mouth a help screen conveniently popped up where the original window had been, honestly, it was rather annoyingly in my field of view. I was either really crazy or this was real; I was leaning towards the latter as I was a very logical person and I knew I hadn't drunk anything alcoholic the night before. Ok so it can use both thoughts and voice, well that's nice. A welcome message populated the transparent floating window. I ran my hand through the window or where it would have been with no effect. Is it projected directly to my optical nerve? Fascinating. What can I say I'm a geek and new tech is always awesome.

"Focus, Paul," I say to myself as I read the screen.

Welcome to the Mana System. This system was designed for sapient beings who reached a certain level of development.

"Pff, guess they haven't been watching us very closely if they think humans are developed."

If you have been given a countdown timer it means the system was activated prematurely and you will be given an hour to define your starting stats and class.

"Yep, that makes more sense."

The Mana system helps users grow and improve through combat and non-combat activities and allows you to overcome the limitations of your body and mind. Flora and fauna will be affected along with sentient entities on the initialized planet.

Ok, so like an M.M.O., I looked down at my flabby belly with dismay. 'Well let's hope there is some way to improve my physique or I am not going to survive long enough to get home,' I thought, willing away the welcome message.

I needed to understand this system more before I made any rash choices. The best way to do that was through the help menu. Unless of course, the system had a Google search, thinking about it didn't bring anything up. Oh well back to plan A.

Skimming through the help section quickly so as not to waste time that may be better suited to choosing my starting stats and class, netted me some important information. It also gave me the impression that the help files were incomplete or information had been stripped from it. Having sentences that just simply ended, or missing any tips or tricks that you would normally associate with a knowledge base or help section. Unfortunately, I didn't have time right now to dwell on the oddities of this Mana System.

I still managed to learn a few important things. First off you get a set amount of stats at level one with set stat increases every level in the form of a modifier and attribute increases every 5 levels based on your class and species. Yes, you could choose your starting species. I was fine with being human but I would look them over if time permitted. I glanced at the clock 51:11, the next thing I learned from the help section was that you could choose a starting class, which was mentioned by the welcome message.

What it didn't mention was that you could multi-class as well but experience points earned would be cut into thirds. So you would have more skills but earn levels much slower. It made sense. There were also advanced classes to choose if you met the criteria, and knew about them. I didn't know about them so a fat lot of good that did for me.

The last nugget of intel I gathered from the help section, was that you could choose a second class or advance your class at level 20 without the experience penalty, as long as you did it within one day of gaining level 20.

"Yikes, I bet most people are going to miss that one if they haven't read the help, or if they blew through the character creation section."

Another thing that was clear from what I gathered in the help section if I didn't complete my choices by the time the counter finished, everything I had failed to complete would be randomized for me except base stats. This information was handily tucked in the what-if section. For example, what if I am comatose, or what if I have a learning disability. While it didn't say what would happen to those sorts of individuals the fact that they were included had to mean something, otherwise why bother. I could only hope the Mana System gave everyone a fair shake at this new life.

I guess it was time to start. I willed away the help window and saw another blinking icon at the bottom. Focusing on it another window filled my view.

The words character creator along the top and tabs along the side for choices like appearance, sex, species, class, and stats. I left sex and species alone, and I would like to say I left appearance alone but I tweaked it a bit. Just small things like fixing my flab, making myself a bit taller and enhancing... well let's leave it at that. Some people might jump at the chance to be a different species, perhaps elf, dwarf, or beastkin but I was fine being human. Plus there was nothing in the help section that said changing species would boost any of your god-given talents.

Now for the important part, I focused my mind to open the class window. What greeted me was a wall of classes. Even the little scroll icon on the side was pixel thin.

'God this will take forever to go through.'

I wondered if I could slim the list down. Show advanced classes only, I thought, hoping for the list to shrink. The list did shrink to zero. Duh forgot I don't know any advanced classes. Remove classes not compatible with my species. The list shrank but not much. So there were some species-specific classes. I wonder about gender-specific. Remove classes not compatible with my gender. The list shrank again.

"Still too long," I grumbled and then had an adolescent moment, "That's what she said." I chuckled to myself which helped to relieve some of the stress I was feeling at the moment. Yes, I am a 35-year-old man child I quickly glanced at the clock.

45:18 minutes remaining

Shit almost 15 minutes wasted. I had to think quickly of a way to reduce the list of classes to a manageable amount. Maybe I needed to approach this differently. Think about my goal and work from there. What did I need? I needed survivability, something I could solo with since I was over one hundred miles from home or anyone I could say I was close with. Heck, even the campground office was 3 miles away. Which with a car isn't an issue but I noticed while reading the help section that nothing with electricity was working anymore. My phone, my watch, and even my car no longer worked since this Mana system came into being. So I needed to make my way back to my home, assuming it survived, by walking or finding some ride that didn't rely on electricity. Too bad there weren't any Amish in the area.

I tried filtering by classes that got mounts and saw a few, and a note saying mount must be purchased separately. So that was a no go. I tried filtering by beast tamers, or other classes that could summon monsters and none of those would help me in the short run.

A quick perusal of their skills shows that riding beasts weren't available until way later in their builds. I dismissed those as I didn't want to manage a bunch of summons. Just thinking about it gave me a headache even though they were very good for offense, they lacked defense or survivability. They were in the same category as a pure mage. I looked at those as well because magic in games was often very powerful. Glass cannons though for sure.

Magic would still be useful so I set that as a filter. The list shrunk significantly, although, not enough to go through each one.

Next was the weapon. I couldn't imagine myself swinging around a sword and I didn't see anything mentioned in the help section about weapon skills being applied or if they had to be learned. So something simple like a staff or bludgeoning weapon. I mean anyone can swing a stick or hammer. I added both weapons types to the filter and the list shrank again. There were still too many options.

Ok, now we are getting somewhere. I added a few more filters, Support magic, self-support magic, group support magic. I choose to add group support magic to help out if I ever found myself in a party. I didn't imagine I would be alone forever and everyone liked support characters, in games at least.

The list shrank to about 100. Ok, that was more manageable. I added one more filter healer because I had a feeling no matter how safe I was, I was going to get hurt somewhere along the way if this system acted anything like the games I remembered. I didn't mind being a support class if it came to that. I really only wanted the healing and basic weapon skills to help me survive until I made it to civilization. I thought the rest was just a bonus, after that, who knew what would happen.

Seven results remained. I glanced at the clock again.

35:41 minutes remaining

I still had enough time. The list consisted of some strange classes. Dominator, Witchdoctor, Mantra Enchanter, Lumien, Totem, Buff master, Cho-len-fe.

Some of the names were rather dull but I looked them all over anyway.

The Dominator was a male Dominatrix that grew stronger the more people he dominated through well, you know, hard pass. The Witchdoctor used Herbs and potions along with voodoo. It sounded like an interesting class but I didn't want to learn herb lore as I never was good with plants. The Mantra Enchanter sounded familiar, like a class in a game I played in my youth. It was a H.O.T. or heal over time class with self and group buffs. The Lumien was a healer that used light-based buffs, good against undead, just meh against other creatures.

"Great another thing to worry about," I grumbled, I mean just the thought of undead made me shudder.

Totem used carved statues to cast AOE or area of effect spells around where the statues sat. Another interesting class but I would need to carve the statues which meant there was a lot of setup required before I would be useful or I would have to carry a lot of different statues. They were also limited use before they turned to ash according to the description.

The Buff master was similar to the Mantra Enchanter only with less self or group buffs, more single target buffs that were stronger but shorter duration. The Cho-len-fe was a class that relied on spirits to power spells and buffs. It was a powerful class but required you to capture the spirits to power the spells first, hard choices.

I discarded the Dominator, Witchdoctor, and Lumien because they really wouldn't help my situation any. I did the same with the Buff master and Cho-len-fe as they would only be effective in a group. The totem would be my first choice if I had more time to prepare, but looking at the clock.

18:23 minutes remaining

I doubt I would. The Mantra Enchanter looked like a good overall class. I went over it again for safety sake or at least the limited information that was available on it.

Mantra Enchanter: The Mantra Enchanter calls on the universe through sacred words or sounds to empower, heal, and devastate those around them. "True power can be realized in words." - Unknown Mantra Master

Class skills at level 1

Basic Mace/Staff proficiency

Minor Rejuvenate: Heal 50 HP over 30sec, Cost 25 mana, cooldown 1min

Minor Wind Walk: Increase agility by 2 for 30min, Cost 100 mana, cooldown 15min

Minor Giant Strength: Increase strength by 2 for 5min, Cost 30 mana, cooldown 6min

Weak shield: Grants a shield that absorbs 10% of damage for 5min, Cost 40 mana, cooldown 1min

Both the Wind Walk and the Giant Strength were AOE spells that covered all allies in a 5-meter radius. The Shield could only be cast on me and the Rejuvenate could be cast on anyone including myself. All in all, it was a decent class. I selected it and was going to move on to my stats before I got a popup. Geez, can't get away from popups.

Congratulations you were the first user in your zone to read the help documentation. You have been awarded one additional skill from random selection. Skill may not be class-specific.

Skill awarded: Area of Denial - Class skill of Battlefield Champion

Skill produces an area of 1m around you that is inviolate lasts 30sec, Cost 250 mana, cooldown 3 hours

I let out a low whistle at the skill description. That should come in handy. I glanced at the rapidly dwindling timer

11:05 minutes remaining

Better get moving on to the stats screen.

Strength: 10

Endurance: 10

Agility: 10

Perception: 10

Intelligence: 10

Wisdom: 10

Charisma: 10

Luck: 10

With 20 additional points to distribute between the stats, I had to choose carefully. If I focused my mind on the stat I got a general description of what it applied to.

Strength added carrying capacity and damage. Intelligence allowed for a larger mana pool and ability to cast higher level spells for certain classes as well as spell damage, but only for certain classes.

The Mantra Enchanter wasn't limited by the spell level issues at least as far as I could see; it might affect certain items if they had prerequisites. It did, however, tie directly into my spell damage.

Wisdom affected mana regeneration rate and spell damage which was slightly different from M.M.O.'s that I played in the past. Again, the spell damage seemed to be for other classes since mine went off intelligence.

Agility affected movement speed, cast speed, and ability to dodge. Perception allowed you to spot creatures or incoming attacks faster. Charisma affected people's general opinion of you or likeability. Endurance effected how long you could fight or run and walk without tiring. Then there was the always nebulous luck stat.

The description I got when I focused on it was less than useful. You're either lucky or you're not.

I could put 2 in each and have 4 left but I had to assume 10 was rather low so 12 wouldn't be very good either. I knew I needed mana and mana regen, agility, and perception to try and avoid trouble and endurance so I could fight longer.

With my buffs, I could up my strength and agility by 2 as long as I had mana and my cooldowns were off. I could add 1 to Str, 4 to Int, 3 to Wis, 2 to Agi, 2 to Per, 1 to Cha, 2 to End, 2 to luck. This would leave me with 3 points to spend where needed based on my stats. I decided to go with that and hold onto the three points until I could see where they would be most useful.

Strength: 11

Endurance: 12

Agility: 12

Perception: 12

Intelligence: 14

Wisdom: 13

Charisma: 11

Luck: 12

While it might not be the optimal build, I felt good about this and mentally clicked accept. A window popped up asking me to confirm and I clicked yes again. I looked at the clock hoping I still had some time left.

5:24 minutes remaining

Unassigned stat points will not be randomly assigned. Unassigned stat points remaining 3

Congratulations on choosing Mantra Enchanter as your class

Perfect. I grabbed the small hatchet that I used for firewood and looked for a stout stick to use as a staff. I wasn't sure I would be able to use the hatchet when the system came online or if it would even do damage so I needed a weapon and I had the feeling the system wasn't going to just spawn me one.

I quickly found what I thought was an ironwood tree branch that was nice and dry and relatively straight. I trimmed it down to about 5 and-a-half feet. I bounced it in my hand feeling the heft and it was on the heavy side.

Hopefully, the system recognized it as a weapon and I had the strength to wield it or I might be out of luck.

2 minutes remaining

I started packing up my campsite. At least I had a small tent and hiking pack that a past girlfriend, who was way into backpacking, talked me into buying. I guess I should thank her now since I had to walk and carry everything I needed unless the system had an inventory.

I guess I would find out in 30 seconds. 15 seconds. I gripped the staff tightly as the final seconds ticked away. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1.